Gone are the days where moving into a home meant giving up a well-appointed lifestyle or downsizing from a 2,500-square-foot house to a bland boxy bachelor apartment.

Today’s retirement accommodations are more on par with a five-star hotel than a nursing home. Not only are seniors offered an array of full-service luxury amenities, they have more choices and options available to them in terms of how they live and what they do.

“People live longer and are healthier, and you can imagine, if you are 80, you don’t want to eat at the same restaurant or do the same thing every day,” says Daniel Ger, vice-president of Retirement Life Communities (RLC). Three of his company’s communities — Palisade Gardens in Cobourg, Royal Palisade in Stratford and Palisades on the Glen in Mississauga — are in high demand by well- to-do seniors.

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“This market [of retirees] is significantly more wealthy and able-bodied than [seniors were] in the past. They’re moving out of large homes, so they’re not going to go live in a 200- to 300-sq.-ft. unit,” he says. “Rigid platforms — where a person eats three meals a day — are no longer the norm. You can choose to engage in food programs or not. You can choose to engage in activities or not,” Mr. Ger explains. “You can have your family over for dinner. You can buy into housekeeping services or you can choose not to. The nature of, and the way we define, retirement living is changing.”

(Condos at Palisades on the Glen, as an example, range from $289,000 to $560,692 for units from 617 sq. ft. to 1,098 sq. ft. Rental apartments range from 412 to 1,141 sq. ft. at $1,988 to $4,933 per month.)

Mr. Ger’s sentiment is echoed by Deena Pantalone, a partner in Toronto-based Living Life Retirement Residences (retirementlifecommunities.com). Her company’s latest development, Living Life On The Avenue (livinglifeontheavenue.com) at Avenue Road and Eglinton Avenue West, personifies this new retirement living trend.

“Our residents never feel like they’re in an institution. We offer a boutique-living environment that allows seniors to feel like they’re living life in a private club with luxurious services,” Ms. Pantalone enthuses. “Life is much richer and more rewarding,” she says. “We worked very hard and did a lot of research and focus groups to understand what [seniors] wanted.”

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Located on the former site of St. James Bond United Church, Living Life On The Avenue is luxe living at its finest.

The thoughtfully designed building houses everything from an indoor pool to a full-service spa called On The Avenue Spa by Woody Michleb. There’s a piano bar, a theatre, housekeeping and laundry services, a private lounge with live entertainment, a tuck shop and an elegant dining room. And residents are offered a wide array of enviable activities to take part in daily — from a Versace trunk show to cooking demonstrations with Bonnie Stern or wine tutoring lessons with experts from the LCBO. There’s yoga, painting lessons, sewing workshops and trips to Stratford or to Toronto’s theatre district.

All of these activities, and the use of Living Life On The Avenue’s full-service amenities, are included in the cost of a resident’s monthly fees, which start at $4,251 per month for a junior suite and cap at around $8,050 per month for an executive two-bedroom unit.

Shirley Granovsky, who downsized from a 4,500-sq.-ft. Yorkville condo, brought along dozens of large pieces of art, sculpture, sentimental furnishings and even her chandeliers. Her main bedroom features a large (and immaculate) walk-in closet that holds her extensive wardrobe, a large ensuite with all the features of home, and space enough for a desk and seating. The entire unit has fabulous views of the CN Tower over the city treetops. While she treasures the comforts of her custom suite, she regularly partakes in activities, including learning to paint (and she’s proud to say she’s pretty good).

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“Giving residents these options and the freedom to make their own choices makes them feel alive and energized,” Ms. Pantalone says. “We work with them and ask them what they want to do. This is their home.”

But it’s not just the amenities and activities that make living in a retirement community, such as this one, so special for seniors. The look and feel of these complexes is vastly different from nursing homes of the past.

At Living Life On The Avenue, residents can collaborate with an interior designer to decorate their suites in unique and customized ways. They can choose high-end finishes, from marble to hardwood and carpet. And all of the common walls are a warm beige — the pops of colour in the public spaces are thanks to Neil Dankoff, a panoramic photographer.

Pair all of that with the massive windows found in each unit and it’s no wonder a resident would feel like they’re staying in a hotel and not at an old-school end-of-life home.

“It was important for us to design a building that was in keeping with the community and that made seniors feel welcome,” Ms. Pantalone says. “From the north-facing windows that look over the beautiful green treetop … to the south-facing view of the skyline, including the CN Tower and the lake, the architectural touches and finishes we give our suites ensure our residents feel like they’re living a five-star life well into their golden years.”

Which is important to developers like Ms. Pantalone and RLC’s Mr. Ger: The purpose of these homes is to make residents feel young at heart, while also making daily tasks easier for them when their bodies naturally slow down because of age.

One of the main ways Mr. Ger and his architects have done this is to subtly install safety features throughout their buildings.

To ensure seniors don’t hurt themselves when bending over to plug something in, “electrical plugs are higher off the ground and there’s automated lighting, so if a resident gets up in the middle of the night, they don’t trip or fall down,” Mr. Ger says. “Doors are wide enough to fit walkers. The general layout is conducive to aging, without being in your face.”

Focusing on these details is why 76-year-old Marilyn Hepburn opted for this style of retirement living. She has resided at RLC’s Palisades On The Glen for two years. She was drawn to the complex because of its location (the home is surrounded by lush forests and is beside a ravine), its high-end amenities and activities (all of which are similar to those offered by Living Life On The Avenue) and that she could buy her unit instead of just rent it (renting has, historically, been the only option available to residents at a retirement home). Ms. Hepburn says she knew other seniors’ communities couldn’t offer her what Palisades, and others like it, could.

“Before buying into my retirement home condo, I did a lot of research. [In other homes], there would be two people crammed in a room, there were only two choices for meals, there were two meal times. The homes were always, I thought, run more like institutions. And I don’t think there was too much dignity or independence left for the seniors living there,” Ms. Hepburn says. “It was certainly not how I would want to live.”

Ms. Hepburn observes: “[Palisades] has given me access to so much. You don’t have to worry about meals, security or safety and this means that any time I have left can be spent doing what I want in a beautiful setting.”